true tales as told by Noelle

Month: February 2016

From Munich I took a train to Nuremberg Main Station, where I would then switch to a smaller train line heading to the town of Roth, my first actual stop on this trip. The total land travel time was around 3 1/2 hours, but at 23 Euro I can’t really complain (versus 100+ Euro to fly from Munich to Nuremberg).

In 2014, I flew to Germany to compete in Challenge Roth, and that’s pretty much all I did there. Arrive to acclimatize a few days before the ironman race, do the race, recover for a day, and then get outta there. Last year I had the opportunity to fly there again to observe the race. Since I wasn’t going to be exerting myself much I decided to go see places afterwards.

Challenge Roth is held in the region known as Bavaria which itself has a long and storied history as an independent kingdom as well as part of the country of Germany. I decided to focus my touristy attentions within the region, traveling between Munich (my point of entry into Europe) and Nuremberg (the major city near the town of Roth). I would also make a stop at the UNESCO World Heritage City of Regensburg, then take a day tour into Salzburg, Austria.

Getting to Germany from the Philippines was an easy affair once my visa had been processed. I booked via Etihad, which was the best bang-for-buck. While Manila-Munich vv is priced at over $1000 USD, you can get a much cheaper fare by going to Kayak and booking a multi-city flight. I booked Singapore-Munich-Manila which came out to a little more than $730 USD. For Manila-Singapore I booked a cheap one-way flight via Jetstar that cost me $90 USD (including baggage allowance and meal). So have a play around with the booking engines and try to find the best price. As an added plus, I was never on a plane longer than 8 hours. (My previous flight to Germany with KLM killed me with a 14-hour nonstop flight from Taiwan to Amsterdam!)

When in Phuket there’s so much to do on the water as well as at the beaches. While there are many islands less traveled you may visit, as a solo traveler I decided to put my fate in trusted hands and signed up for a tour to Phang Nga Bay by Two Sea Tour, the #1 Phuket boat and watersports tour according to TripAdvisor. I had heard rave reviews from a fellow hotel guest staying in Thanyapura, so I went for it without hesitation. Read more →